Thread: Couey found guilty of Lunsford's murder

Couey found guilty of Lunsford's murder
By Susannah A. Nesmith

McClatchy Newspapers

(MCT)

MIAMI - No one in the courtroom, not even John Evander Couey, reacted Wednesday when a Miami-Dade jury convicted him of kidnapping, raping and murdering 9-year-old Jessica Lunsford.

For most people there, the trial is only half finished.

Couey is facing the death penalty and the judge, the attorneys, the jury and Jessica's family will all be back next week for the sentencing phase of the trial.

"We're almost there," Mark Lunsford, Jessica's father, said after the court adjourned. "It ain't over yet."

The evidence against Couey was overwhelming, including DNA that proved he had raped Jessica in his bedroom. His attorneys didn't even present much of a defense, a tactic experts say makes sense because Couey is facing the death penalty.

"Without saying it, they conceded the guilt-innocence issue and tried to position themselves to have a shot at saving this guy's life," said veteran defense attorney Milton Hirsch. "They didn't antagonize the jury. They didn't insult the jury."

Couey, a convicted sex offender, confessed to detectives that in February 2005 he broke into Jessica's home in Homosassa, Fla., lured her out of her bedroom, took her to his home around the corner and raped her. Then he said he put the little girl in two garbage bags and buried her alive in his back yard.

She died clutching the stuffed dolphin her father had won for her the week before at a fair.

The jury never heard Couey's taped confession because Circuit Judge Ric Howard threw it out: Citrus County, Fla., deputies violated Couey's rights when they questioned him after he had asked for an attorney.

The case was moved to Miami because too many people in Central Florida said they knew of the confession.

But prosecutors had the DNA - Jessica's in blood found on Couey's mattress and Couey's found in semen mixed with the blood.

And they had evidence of an even more horrific crime - little Jessica was buried alive according to the medical examiner. After Couey covered her body with dirt, she poked her fingers out of the garbage bags.

As court got under way Wednesday morning, prosecutor Pete Magrino propped up the picture that ran in newspapers and on television across the country: a smiling Jessica wearing a pink hat.

Then Magrino showed the jury a picture no one wanted to see. This one, taken a month later, showed Jessica's decomposed body.

"As a result of what the defendant did to Jessie, that's what she looked like. . . That's a photo of Jessie in death," Magrino told the jury doing his closing argument.

Twice he pointed out that Couey tricked Jessica into coming with him by telling her "I'm taking you to your father."

Magrino knelt down in front of the jury to show how she was stuffed her into the garbage bags.

"Little 9-year-old Jessie suffocated in those bags," he said.

Defense attorney Dan Lewan spoke to the jury for only 15 minutes, urging them not to let the prosecution play on their emotions.

"The government started the case with the lady who cried and the family in a clear attempt to appeal to your emotions," Lewan said, referring to a family friend and Jessica's father and grandmother. All three testified the first day of the trial.

He questioned the investigation done by Citrus County sheriff's deputies, saying they pinned the highly-publicized crime on Couey because they were under pressure to solve it.

Lewan called the investigation "a one dimensional quest to get John Couey."

"They have not and will not consider any other goal," he said.

But Lewan didn't offer an alternative theory of how Jessica was killed and never claimed that his client was innocent.

The jury deliberated four hours before announcing the verdict.

Citrus County State Attorney Brad King, who came to Miami-Dade to observe the trial, said the decision didn't surprise him.

"Part of the reality of jury trials is the facts you have to work with," King said. "We had the facts on our side."

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascit ... 855320.htm

I don't understand why the people who lived in the house where he took the girl have gotten off without any charges. They were in the house part of the time. They said, they were so spaced out on drugs they may have not realized the girl was in the house, but they don't seem to have any proof that they didn't know.

Sawdust, if you ask me, these people went so far as to assist in this crime, I know it in my soul, they were all a part of this baby's torture, I lived many years in a mobile home, I know for a fact, this man was not able to carry on the torture of this poor child without the others living there knowing about it which leads me to believe they were a part of it! If ever there was a reason for the death penalty this is it, seeing those 2 little fingers sticking up out of that sack, totally reduced this old man to tears, I am not ashamed to say, just thinking of what she went through and then for this sick, evil little man, to say someday he would apologize to her in heaven for what he did, is somehow the most evil thing he did, I am not as well versed in the scripture as I should be, but I remember a thing that Jesus said about little children, about suffering the little children to come unto him, and that if anyone dared to harm one hair on their heads, it would be better for him to be weighted down and dropped into the sea, that tells me, he probably won't get a chance to face that baby in heaven to ask for her forgiveness.I also remember a verse saying there would be no tears in heaven, they would be wiped away by Jesus himself, so I am sure he won't be there for surely she could not look on his evil face without the shedding of her tears! Mark's attorney I believe, said of Jesse, she was America's child, he was so right, I will never forget this little girl and the look of pain on her father's face as he had to sit in that courtroom and listen to the unholy and vile things that his little girl had to endure by this most evil man.I have often heard, but not always understood when other people say out of great suffering and evil come good things, I guess you could say that out of little Jesse's suffering and death, came her own law, Jesse's law,that hopefully, might prevent this terrible thing from befalling some other little child!